Research

After a rigorous, five-year evaluation in the United States revealed that children served by the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program are up to three times more likely to be adopted, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption-Canada began scaling the program through a co-investment public/private partnership strategy.

In 2016, the Foundation and the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services officially launched a three-year commitment to scale Wendy’s Wonderful Kids in Ontario, with 15 adoption recruiters funded by the government and eight recruiters funded by the Foundation in coordination with the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada.

To date, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiters have found permanent homes for more than 600 children across Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan.

Right now, more than 30,000 children are waiting to be adopted from foster care in Canada. To achieve the vision that every child will have a permanent home and a loving family, it is critical to understand Canadians’ awareness and perceptions of adoption and foster care.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption-Canada commissioned The Harris Poll to conduct the 2022 Canada Adoption and Foster Care Attitudes Survey. The Foundation first commissioned the survey in 2012 and has continued to survey Canadians every five years to understand how these perceptions change over time.

The Harris Poll surveyed more than 1,000 Canadian adults, discovering a number of positive changes. The 2022 survey reveals that 68% of Canadians believe all waiting children are adoptable, a 14% increase from 2017.

“Increased interest in and support for adoption is exactly what the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption-Canada has been working toward,” said Rita Soronen, President & CEO of the Foundation. “Building public support for foster care adoption is critically important.”

While a growing number of Canadians believe more should be done to help youth in care, unfortunately, more than half (51%) mistakenly believe that children are placed in foster care because they are juvenile delinquents. “The idea that these children have done something wrong, causing them to be placed in foster care, continues to permeate society,” Soronen said. “It is a misconception that we must continue to fight.”